


A Comparison

by Ovmadns



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Gen, Meta, Some of the images have even more snark in their titles, You can tell how late it was when I edited certain images, by the amount of dumbass commentry in the margins, comparison, fan essay, hover or hold over at your own peril, lets leave it at that, so YMMV, this is more of a rant with manga pics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-03
Updated: 2019-01-03
Packaged: 2019-10-03 09:45:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17281709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ovmadns/pseuds/Ovmadns
Summary: A Scar and Hughes analysis of sorts. Yeah, I'm as surprised this has to exist as you are.





	A Comparison

**Author's Note:**

> I will say because Scar is my Fav character in FMA, this thing is more so about him than the others- but I do touch heavily on Roy, Riza, and Hughes. with a tinsey bit on Ed. This is manga heavy as FMA's biggest impact on me as a reader/viewer was the manga first.

Originally supposed to be a sub for [PhantomRose96](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phantomrose96/pseuds/Phantomrose96) who writes fantastic meta's on FMA on her [Tumblr.](http://phantomrose96.tumblr.com/) But it got too padded & long, so It's here now. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

I don't remember when it occurred to me- (I think a year or so ago) but it bugged me at one point that in my memory of Scar and Hughes profile- that they had similar hairstyle/head silhouette. It bugged me so much that I had to go back and check. They don’t exactly, but I noticed a bunch of other things as I reread, as few scenes definitely gave me pause in the manga when it came to those two characters.

Like when Hughes was first introduced in the manga with Armstrong, complaining about putting Tucker’s body on trial. Two pages right after that is the first time the readers see Scar. This is also the only moment in the manga where we see those two together literally on the same page.

Afterward- when Scar shows up for real, it’s with Ed’s name being mentioned- it’s also the first time we see his eyes past the glasses.

Interestingly enough- his eyes disappear as he looms with the conviction to attack and kill Ed and the other soldier, then reappears in rage as he says Ed’s title.

The battle we all know after is thankfully interrupted by Mustang & friends, but on re-read of the entire chapter- it niggled me that although Hughes and Scar were first introduced to us as readers, one almost immediately after the other. They never actually crossed paths. Hughes doesn’t resurface again until Scar runs into the sewers and the fight ends.

They never come again close to crossing paths either. Like if this was the only thing, I wouldn't be writing- but there's more.

* * *

 

The second major Scene/Sequence that bugged me is Hughes funeral.

Right after this is Roy’s infamous & only moment of crying, Roy then has a discussion with Armstrong about Hughes killers.

He rightly asses from Armstrong’s message, that Hughes was taken down by two people- we know from watching how Hughes died- it was Lust and then Envy who attacked him, **_two homunculi_**.

But during that time- I’d say that this is actually the first time we see hints of Roy’s internal gear twitching towards ideas of vengeance (The “I’m not going to let this die” line also seems a lot like his attitude when killing Envy in hindsight). On the surface during first read through though, it just looked like determination to reach his goals. Riza does remark that him mixing personal with business isn’t normal- even though he says it is ( & we do see that clearer later on in Ishval flashbacks).

What really got me though, is that right after this scene with Roy and Riza discussing in the aftermath. We transition to this:

Scar…. _dreaming,_ remembering Ishbal, Kimblee, a time where he almost died. Then he recalled fighting Gluttony and Lust. **_Two homunculi_** that almost killed him (when three state alchemists hadn’t been even close).

 

And then he wakes up

And he’s drawn from the same perspective as when we first looked at Hughes Coffin. 

**Arakawa literally drew Scar waking up the first time- after Hughes was laid to sleep forever.**   And like maybe the sleep/death analogy wasn’t intentional, but it was part of what made Hughes funeral so tragic to me, as Elicia clearly hadn’t yet understood yet that her dad was gone ( _“Why do they have to bury Papa?”-“If they do that, papa won’t be able to go to work”-“Papa said he had lotsa work to do!”-“Please don’t bury him-”_ ) & I swear I remember a dub/sub version of those lines where Elicia was saying they shouldn't bury Hughes because he was gonna wake up.

This whole thing might just be the art side of my brain making too many connections- but this sequence on re-reading rattled me. (Scar and Hughes both facing two homunculus- one dying, the other just surviving by the skin of his teeth, the transitions of one after another- _as if both can’t exist in the same space-_ )

It just really got me thinking about what Arwaka had actually intended Scar and Hughes. Did she want them to be similar? If not in personality- a least in their narrative role? Because there's one foil she spelled out clearly to the reader, and that's between Scar and Roy:

As both consider themselves in inhuman/subhuman ("Monster"/"Ooze") on some level because of all the people they killed. But if this was planned from the start- Scar's foil to Roy, it is all the odder- the way Cow Sensie chose to bring Scar back into the narrative after first fighting Ed. As there's nothing visually about Scar's re-entry into the story after his first fight with Mustang & Co, that's similar to Roy's scenes.

* * *

The last time Scar and Hughes appear in story in near any proximity/sequence to each other to the reader, is during the volume where everyone's recalling Ishval. Hughes, when he first shows up in those chapters- we don’t see his eyes.

No- we only see them after they have this exchange.

Like this isn’t a one-off narrative/visual choice- Arakawa did the ‘glasses not showing eyes thing’ to show inhumanity before- she does it almost full time later with characters like the gold tooth doctor. I do acknowledge that she’s has used it for a lot of other purposes, like simplifying an image, positive and negative tones/moods, to communicating a variety of attitudes like exasperation/indifference/unreadability/contemplation in other characters. But on re-read of the Ishval chapters-it’s clearly there in those chapters to signify being a killer & it’s really jarring to see Hughes get this treatment. As it’s the reverse of how Hughes and Scar were introduced at the beginning of the manga. In context, the younger Scar is introduced in these flashback chapters with us clearly seeing his eyes.

Going further than my rankling/ itch on Cow sensei’s choices in character focus/rendering- Hughes and Scar even have similar responses to their brother/best friend’s dream/ideals.

They’re both pretty skeptical, Scar questions if his brother’s hopes are even possible. Hughes flat out calls Roy’s dream childish.

But it’s also interesting seeing their differences, as Hughes goes almost immediately to fully Support Roy’s dream. They literally make a pact of it, as a conclusion to all the soul-searching Roy does in Ishval.

But Scar judges that no one will support his brother’s dream/ideals, after seeing what the people who helped his brother thought.

And, yeah that ended poorly for everyone involved.

But we also know that due to his brother’s efforts, Scar much later on, turns around and changed his mind, he picked up the alchemy on both of his brother’s arms, to fight for everyone. And we also know that despite Hughes immediate support of Roy, Roy’s actions & ideals/dreams couldn’t save Hughes in the long run. Maes ultimately died when Roy wasn’t there to watch his back, looking for answers- just trying to help everyone. And it really makes me wonder, why Arakawa wrote the narratives of all these characters the way she did.

* * *

 

Near the end, when we're nearing the climax of the entire story, and seeing the culmination of Roy’s rage. Scar shows up, and his effect when Roy finally closed in on Envy is significant. Roy went from ignoring Hawkeye’s threat.

Threatening to burn off Ed’s arm if he didn’t hand over Envy.

To Bargaining, all because Scar followed up on Ed’s callout.

Like the moment is so significant, Riza thanks him afterward like this.

As if **_Scar_**   was the key person to saving Roy- not Ed, not even herself. In reality- I think Riza wasn’t giving herself enough credit, and it was the combination of all three of them that slowed Roy down, her conviction to follow him to the grave that finally axed it. But it definitely makes me wonder why that moment happened.

**Why was it Scar?** Roy’s reason for tipping over that moment makes sense, it’s an Ishvallan in front of him- speaking from experience & questioning what he’d make at all if he gave in. Someone of the same race as all the people whose blood his gloves were soaked in & part of the reason that solidified his conviction to change the country in the first place.

Ishvalans being a reminder of what he’s done and what he is + a reminder _of what he could be_. To Roy, **both are contained in Scar’s presence and question**. But considering that Roy’s dream, where we see him first making the conviction to aim higher than Bradly, **_happens with Hughes, literally put to words by Hughes._**

**__ **

**_Why was Scar also there? _Why in hells is he a pillar of the trifecta **to keep Roy’s dream alive?**_   _**Ed makes sense because he made the Cenz promise with Roy after hearing all about Ishval from Riza. He made the Judgement early on that Roy still needed to be held accountable to his dream. He was also close to Hughes and concerned straight off the bat that Roy would do something wrong because of Envy.

Riza makes sense- because she’s been with Roy the entire way- she gave the secrets on her back because she believed in Roy’s dream- _Alchemy for the people_. She was there at the beginning of this all asking the question Roy asked himself **_& _She’s there at the end, as the one who understands his pain from Hughes, his loss, what that meant to Roy's Dream the most.**

****

Roy understands that as well. But Scar is the Anomaly. He’s the one person who has no personable or conscientious connection to Hughes or Roy’s dream. **Yet he’s still there to help save it**. Like while I do think his in narrative reasons is like Ed stated: choosing to support other people, choosing his brother’s philosophy (as Ed also actually reminded Scar of his brother), choosing to recognize the parallels between Roy and himself.

But I can't help but think there's more to it then that. I think one of the meta reason for putting him there is because Arakawa considered Hughes and Scar similar, and both important to Roy’s dream at different leg's of his journey (Hughes is the first person to question and support his ambitions, and Scar was the one to “free him of his demon’s” so he could still achieve them).

* * *

It certainly makes non-canon but also canon pictures like these feel deeper to me.

Cause I don’t think it was a coincidence Scar and Hughes were drawn beside each other at the end. As that spread has virtually every off scene character grouped with other characters they know or would be know of by- Winry is being looked at by Hohenheim, Havoc by Fuery and Breda, Buccaneer is drawn with his claw right behind miles head, much to Mustang’s rebel gang’s annoyance.

Like the only other offscreen character drawn grouped with someone they don’t know of or ever crossed path with, is Kimblee and Lt. Ross. But as you can probably tell from this long as heck ramble- I don’t think Ross and Kim have the sort of narrative significance/ connection that Scar and Hughes do.

* * *

 

In any case, if you’ve read up to this point. Thanks for bearing with my long ass ramble! Even if you don’t subscribe to my brand of ... crazy, I hope you got something insight full out of it!

 


End file.
